I recently tried Ubuntu 9.10 after using both Linux Mint and ubuntu for some years on and off. The problem with Ubuntu 9.10 is that SPDIF or IEC958 doesn't work anymore, but has always worked fine in earlier versions. I have gotten a whole bunch of suggestions on how to solve the problem, but none has worked. Just to be clear, the soundcard is detected and loaded and IEC958 is activated, but still no sound.

With the old soundsystem that Ubuntu used there was never any problem, but now they have some new thing that I have never seen before and it just simply wont work.So my question is, will Linux Mint 8 use the same sound system as Ubuntu 9.10? I hope not, cause then I can't use Ubuntu's nor Mint's latest release.

I'm having the same issue. Funny thing is, in Ubuntu 9.10, the spdif works, but in Mint 8, it doesn't. Same computer, same settings. PCM turns on when I turn the surround sound on, but no sound comes out. It's like it's muted, but I've checked everything. It does this with both coax and optical.

I could setup the sound form the spdif, but then there is no sound from the headphones. Then i could hear voice from the headphone, but then the spdif was mute. And now i cant get sound from none of them... hard

mint-menu > configuration > sound > hardver and on the bottom of the tab: analog stereo duplexHave sound right now. I hope it will stay like this when i reboot.No it dont has digital output again...

I think i solved my problem.1.viewtopic.php?f=49&t=23139Then every reboot i have only digital(spdif) or analog(headphones) sound. Flash videos didnt has sound trough spdif, audacious sounds choppy.2. removed pulseaudio package with his dependencies. Reboot. Now everithing works fine.

So much problem with audio since pulsaudio come out to the default sound server to some distros. I dont know why they force it. At least why dont the developers made it more useable?

I still can't get the optical spdif working, so I went to analog and was able to get sound, but when I'm playing through anything, I have to go into sound preferences and then to applications tab and find which app I'm using. I'll use VLC for an example (this happens to anything though), I have to drag the sound bar all the way to the right to get any sound at all, but when I let go, the sound bar works it's way back to the left. Seems like this is a pretty big flaw, for me atleast.

Please help... I have really enjoy Mint 7 and now 8... But I would really like to hear sounds... I am using the HDMI cable to my monitor speakers and the pavucontrol is muted...I can not for the life of me unmute that volume...

farna wrote:In order to get sound over the HDMI cable you must have the SPDIF output jumpered from your motherboard or sound card to the sound card connection on the video card.

I don't understand this last comment. I'm also having trouble getting my monitor speakers to work, by either regular audio output or HDMI. The sound system seemed to work fine with my headphones but not with my monitor speakers, though the monitor's a high quality Samsung and brand new so should work fine. What does it mean to jumper the SPDIF output to the motherboard/sound card. Is SPDIF even relevant for monitors by other than Sony or Philips? Is my best option to just uninstall pulseaudio and go with alsa (in which case what's the proper setting for HDMI - I couldn't get the pulseaudio to work over any setting) or should I try the XCFE4 option?